For the Patriots, it's simply a case of Randy being Randy

Over a span of 21/2 weeks, New England witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly from Patriots wide receiver Randy Moss.

Glen Farley

FOXBORO — Remember Manny being Manny?

Settle in, New Englanders.

What you’ve seen over the past few weeks has merely been a case of Randy being Randy.

“I think everybody was just laughing and having a good time with it,” quarterback Tom Brady said after Randy Moss, the good times and the Patriots rolled at Gillette Stadium last Sunday. “You obviously see the kind of influence he has on the game when he’s able to make those plays, and I think he was really excited all week.

“He had a great game last week (at Buffalo) for us (and) one of his best games this week. We’re going to keep needing it. He’s a huge part of this offense and to get him the ball in the end zone, he’s such a big target.”

One way or another, over the course of his NFL career that target has generally been a bulls-eye.

That’s pretty much been the way it’s been since the day the Marshall University product entered the NFL as a first-round pick of the Minnesota Vikings in the 1998 draft.

When things are going good, Moss can be nothing short of first-ballot Hall of Fame great.

When things are going bad, he can be a bust — and not the kind on display in Canton, Ohio.

Moss will cause your blood pressure to rise one week. He’ll cause you to rise off your seat the next.

A recent span of 21/2 weeks provided a glimpse of the good, the bad and the ugly that is Randy G. Moss.

The good: While Moss’ four receptions for 45 yards were rather ordinary, the fact that he found the end zone three times in last Sunday’s 35-7 rout of the Jaguars was nothing short of extraordinary.

The good times rolled, all right, the 12-year veteran punctuating his third score by joking back and forth with a 12-year-old fan in the stands the Jumbotron caught wearing a mask bearing the wide receiver’s likeness.

The bad: On Dec. 9, Moss, a team captain, was one of four Patriots that head coach Bill Belichick expelled from Gillette after they’d failed to successfully navigate their ways through a New England snow storm in time for an 8 a.m. meeting at the stadium.

The ugly: No need to go into great detail to revisit Moss’ effort (and that’s giving him the benefit of the doubt) in the Patriots’ 20-10 victory over Carolina on Dec. 13 when he fumbled away the one ball he caught, dropped another, got called for a false start and appeared to merely go through the motions on a route that resulted in an interception.

In the aftermath of that, Panthers defensive backs Chris Gamble and Chris Harris told the Boston Globe that Moss had given something less than 100 percent. After a review of the films, Moss’ former teammate, ESPN’s Cris Carter, couldn’t help but agree.

“I know it’s in him,” said Carter, who spent four seasons with Moss in Minnesota, “but I thought he had matured to the point where I wasn’t going to see it anymore.”

Was Moss sulking? Was he simply in the midst of a bad day at the office? Was the back injury that nagged him earlier in the season handicapping him?

Moss, who seldom addresses the press, isn’t about to mount a campaign in his own defense, so others were left to do it for him.

In the wake of the Panthers game, the coach who sent him home from the stadium did it. The quarterback has continued to do it.

“We’re around him on a daily basis,” Brady said during his weekly appearance on Boston radio station WEEI last Monday. “He doesn’t obviously let a lot of people in. His teammates know him very well, but he doesn’t stand up in front of a podium like a lot of guys and talk for 20 minutes a week like I do. So people probably have a little more insight into the way I think than the way Randy thinks.

“(It’s) just the way that he approaches it. That’s what works for him. He’s a great worker. He comes to practice every day. He practices hard. He’s obviously committed to the team. He was selected a captain by his teammates.

“There’s a lot of attention that gets focused on him both good and bad,” said Brady. “We all don’t have our best days and I think part of it is the spirit of the competition. Not every performance is your best whether it’s me or Randy or Laurence (Maroney) or Wes (Welker). It goes for everybody. Fortunately for us as NFL players, we get to come out and play again the following Sunday. He did that against Buffalo and played great. He had another great game this week.”

Even when he’s off his game, even when he’s not into the game, Moss’ mere presence has to be respected.

As great a slot receiver as Welker has developed into, it’s no coincidence that he became a two-time Pro Bowler after he was dealt from Miami to New England where he joined Moss, who arrived in Foxboro via trade after serving a two-year sentence in Oakland.

There’s no denying that working in tandem with Moss has benefited Welker, who has hauled in 345 passes in his three years with the Patriots, including a league-leading 122 heading into Sunday’s regular-season finale at Houston.

“I know how key it is to have him on the same team as me,” Welker said on Wednesday.

While Moss’ reception total this season (78) is far removed from Welker’s 122, his 1,189 yards are just 147 shy of his partner’s 1,336 and his 13 TDs lead the league (Welker has four).

The numbers have pushed Moss’ 12-year totals to 921 catches for 14,390 yards and 148 TDs, meaning he could very well surpass 1,000 career receptions in 2010.

Moss’ detractors (hello, self) will point out that the man has a lot of baggage; his supporters will point out that he’s caught a bundle of passes.

Both statements are true.

That’s Randy being Randy.

Staff writer Glen Farley can be reached at gfarley@enterprisenews.com.

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